Stone of Mysterious Sounds

The Stone of Mysterious Sounds is another creation from Dragon Magazine #99’s Treasure Trove II. It is originally by Nick Kopsinis.

It was a pretty easy conversion. It had a minimum strength to make it stick when thrown, and required a “to hit” roll, but I just simplified it to a single Strength check.

I added the bit about wild sorcerers, inspired by the 2nd Edition AD&D’s wild mage having a 50% chance to control wands of wonder and other random magic items. It’s something I think I’m going to add as a class ability. I think 50% chance to control is a bit much, so I built off of the existing mechanic of the spell attack bonus to expand the range of the die roll and give a couple options to choose from.

Stone of Mysterious Sounds

Uncommon wondrous item

This stone appears to be similar to any other magical stone, though it is malleable and can be easily grasped and reshaped by a human hand. The stone cannot be pulled apart into smaller stones, and it has only limited elasticity.

You may hurl this stone up to 30’. With a DC 12 Strength check, the stone will stick to whatever non-living surface it strikes. The stone will remain stuck to that surface until it is pulled off (which doesn’t require any special strength roll). One round after it sticks to a surface, the stone will emit one of a number of different sounds. The stone will broadcast this sound until it is pulled free of the surface to which it is stuck.

You may also fit the stone onto a solid surface, then strike the stone with a heavy blunt object to start the sound production.

The stone of mysterious sounds is useful for distracting and deterring opponents from pursuit, to allow the characters to escape or gain time for other actions. Each time the stone is activated, a roll must be made on the following table to determine what sound it produces.

A wild sorcerer activating a stone of mysterious sound can add or subtract up to their spell attack bonus to the d% roll to select from a variety of noises.

d% Roll

Noise Produced

01-04

creaking

05-08

buzzing bees

09-12

groaning*

13-16

footsteps

17-20

ocean waves on beach

21-24

stones grinding

25-28

laughter*

29-32

coughing*

33-36

sneezing*

37-40

muffled whispering*

41-44

whip cracks

45-48

fingers snapping

49-52

mumbled chanting*

53-56

screaming*

57-60

animal growling

61-64

birds chirping

65-68

horns (musical)

69-72

steady rain

73-76

wind chimes

77-80

fighting (swords clashing, shouts, etc.)*

81-84

speech**

85-88

whistling*

89-92

chains rattling

93-96

crying*

97-00

wind blowing

*The race of the person(s) making the sound cannot be determined, and no intelligible speech will be discerned.

**The race of the person(s) speaking can be determined randomly or by the DM. The content of the speech may be determined by the DM as desired.Download the PDF for this item here!